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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories July 25, 2003 Francis A. Boyle Impeaching Bush David Krieger 15 Questions Harvey Wasserman Pat Robertson's Supreme Fatwah Steve Dunifer Seize the Airwaves! Dan Bacher Federal Judge Throws Out Bush Salmon Plan for Klamath River Kurt Nimmo Bread, Circuses, Uday and Qusay Steve Perry Bush's Wars Weblog Website of the Day Stop the Wall!   July 24, 2003 Elaine Cassel Ashcroft Loses...Again Robert Fisk The Ugly Story of Camp Cropper: The US Torture Camp in Iraq David Lindorff Dumb and Dumber in Iraq Christopher Brauchli Ashcroft Demands Death Penalty in Puerto Rico David Vest Dylan in Bend Tom Turnipseed Killing Saddam & His Family Won't Stop Killing of US Troops Douglas Valentine A Nation of Assassins Stew Albert Contract Killing Steve Perry Bush's Wars Weblog Website of the Day Report on Palestinian Child Prisoners July 23, 2003 Uri Avnery Caesar's Favor David Lindorff Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft Rebuked Mano Singham Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists Steve Perry Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies John Stanton Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope? Patrick Bond Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission Harry Browne A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman Paul Beaulieu When the WTO Comes to Montreal Robert Fisk The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance Will Grow William Witherup Georgie Porgie Website of the Day Lieberman & Falwell: True Love at Last July 22, 2003 Diane Christian Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces; Peace Frees Jeremy Brecher Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran Steve Kretzmann and Jim Vallette Plugging Iraq into Globalization Sam Smith Greening the Golden Triangle James Plummer Smile, You're on Federal Camera Lucretia Stewart This Day Shall Not Define My Life: January 18, 2003 Website of the Day Iraq Coalition Casualties   July 21, 2003 Edward Said Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping of Arabs Ron Jacobs Shut Up and Shoot Allan J. Lichtman Why is George Bush President? Elaine Cassel How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq Christopher Brauchli History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment Camps Bruce Jackson Third and Arizona, Santa Monica Website of the Day John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim by Claim   July 19 / 20, 2003 Arthur Mitzman Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable Than the Dot.com Bubble? Julian Bond We Shall be Heard Cynthia McKinney Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad Mel Goodman What is to be Done with the CIA? Jason Leopold Tenet Blames Wolfowitz Mickey Z. History Forgave Churchill Doug Giebel Impeachment as the Message Jon Brown Whipping the Post Mano Singham Cheney's Oil Maps Steven Sherman Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC Robin Philpot Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters Khaldoun Khelil Capturing Friedman Jeffrey St. Clair You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed Lenni Brenner Sitting in with Mingus Vanessa Jones Three Dog Night Adam Engel Video Judas Video Poets' Basement Foley, Smith and Curtis Website of the Weekend Illegal Art   July 18, 2003 David Vest Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo Rahul Mahajan Deceit Runs Deep John Chuckman Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World Harold A. Gould The Bush-Musharraf Conclave Alvaro Angarita In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists David Grenier Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island Dave Lindorff Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal Website of the Day Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair   July 17, 2003 Ron Jacobs Sometimes Even the President of the United States Has to Stand Naked Lisa Walsh Thomas Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance Martin Schwarz Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs Heidi Lypps Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced Drugging and the Supreme Court Norman Madarasz Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance Conference Pankaj Mehta Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Marjorie Cohn Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the Boy Who Cried Wolf Hammond Guthrie (Dis) Intelligence Revisited Website of the Day No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism July 16, 2003 Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype Dubious Uranium Claims William Cook Defining Terrorism from the Top Down Elaine Cassel Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom Must Not Be Obeyed Jason Leopold How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found? Linda Heard Bondage or Freedom? Raymond Barrett From Detroit to Basra Jeffrey St. Clair Back to the Future in Guatemala: The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt   July 15, 2003 Kathleen and Bill Christison Why We Resigned from VIPS Elaine Cassel Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers: the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack Chris Floyd Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries Jason Leopold CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries Gaius Publius Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please John Troyer The Niger Syndrome Becky Gillette No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David Orrr Uri Avnery The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb Website of the Day Cost of Iraq War   July 14, 2003 Lisa Taraki Hot Days in Ramallah Walter Brasch Bush: the Pretend Captain SOA Watch Training Colombia's Killers in the US Dan Bacher Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Unglued Website of the Day Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties July 12 / 13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   July 11, 2003 Conn Hallinan The Coin of Empire Tim Wise God Responds to Bush Mokhiber / Weissman The Two Faces of Bush in Africa Edward S. Herman Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor David Orr Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation? David Lindorff An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary Website of the Day Dead Malls   July 10, 2003 Ron Jacobs Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics Sean Donahue Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia Yemi Toure Who Outted Bush in Afrika? Robert Jensen Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson Ali Abunimah US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated Joanne Mariner Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions Website of the Day Electronic Iraq   July 9, 2003 David Lindorff Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush? David Krieger and Angela McCracken 10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons Mickey Z. Why Speak Out? Lee Sustar The Great Medicare Fraud John Chuckman The Worst Kind of Lie Gary Leupp "Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq Website of the Day Hail to the Thief: Songs for the Bush Years   July 8, 2003 Elaine Cassel Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia Alan Maass Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor Chris Floyd Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag Linda S. Heard America's Kangaroo Justice Brian Cloughley They Tell Lies to Nodders Charles Sullivan Bush the Christian? Saul Landau The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age Website of the Day Occupation Watch   July 7, 2003 William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Harvey Wasserman The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head Ramzy Baroud Peace for All the Wrong Reasons Simon Jones What Progressives Should Think About Iran Lesley McCulloch Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh Uri Avnery The Draw Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3   July 4 / 6, 2003 Patrick Cockburn Dead on the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass What is Freedom to a Slave? Martha Honey Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect Jeffrey St. Clair The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture Standard Schaefer Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004 Lenni Brenner Jefferson is for Today Elaine Cassel Fucking Furious on the Fourth Ben Tripp How Free Are We? Wayne Madsen A Sad Independence Day John Stanton Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War Jim Lobe Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment John Blair Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke Lisa Walsh Thomas Heavy Reckoning at Qaim David Vest Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite Adam Engel Queer as Grass Poets' Basement Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair Website of the Weekend The Lipstick Librarian   Hot Stories Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

July 26, 2003 The Power of Death "High Vibes...It was a Good Gig" By ROBERT FISK Arabs have never been squeamish about death. They see too much of it. So on the streets of Baghdad Iraqis will pore over the all-too-soon-to-be-iconic photographs of Uday and Qusay. They will say, some of them, "Yes, that's them, the terrible brothers, the 'lion-cubs' of the monster of Baghdad." And others will ask--a good question this--why couldn't they see them yesterday, or indeed the day before? Others still will ponder the old Arab belief in the "moamarer", the plot, the conspiracy. Did the Americans linger to fake the pictures? Have they digitised the brothers' faces to make them appear dead while still they live? The bullet wound in Uday's head, for example, the one that knocked out the teeth and part of the nose. Now there's many an Iraqi who would like to have fired the fatal shot. But what if Uday did take his own life rather than surrender to the enemy? What if he went down fighting, saving the last bullet for himself--and some suggestions have been made the wounds indicate suicide. Now that is an idea which can appeal to the tribal nature of Iraqi society. Iraqis have spent their lives fighting foreigners. Wasn't Uday doing the same? And history, which has an unhappy way of reorganising the most staged of events, might just conspire to turn these photographs into those of martyrs. Which is what the Baath militiamen will do. Cruel the brothers may have been. But cowards? That will be the message. In other words, the publication of these photographs will prove either a stroke of genius or a historic mistake of catastrophic consequences. In the cavernous interior of Baghdad's convention centre, earlier this week journalists asked General Ricardo Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq, why he didn't capture Saddam's sons. What about the little matter of blasting their way into Uday's and Qusay's Mosul hiding place with helicopter rockets and 10 anti-armour TOW missiles rather than collaring the evil brothers and putting them on trial, to emphasise--over months--the wickedness of Saddam's rule. It turned out--this is according to the general--that the "commander on the ground" in Mosul decided to storm the building; it was an "operational decision". This was breathtaking. An officer in the 101st Airborne, with hours to plan a siege, gave the order to his 200 soldiers to blast their way into the house at 11.55 on Tuesday morning. Just like that. Wasn't Sanchez consulted? Wasn't President Bush? Or had the decision already been taken to kill the brothers? Now General Sanchez is obviously a smart guy--even if his bland refusal to grasp the importance of all these questions bordered on arrogance--and he told us that his soldiers had initially adopted the "cordon and knock" procedure. This appeared to be a military version of the old "Avon calling" technique in which a soldier with a bullhorn (the general used that word) ordered the brothers to give themselves up before military action began. Twice the Americans attempted to storm the fortified upper floor of the villa, receiving four wounded--three on the stairs and one outside at the first attempt--when the four occupants of the house fired Kalashnikov rifles at them. But now came the point. The Americans are experts in siege techniques (viz General Manuel Noriega). So why not put a cordon round the villa, evacuate local civilians, point lights at the building, blast it with loud music (the Noriega technique) and starve them out? No Iraqi would have been able to doubt the truth if they eventually saw Uday and Qusay Hussein emerging with their hands up. But no. In went the rockets from the Kiowa CH-58 helicopters, in went the 10 TOWS, in went the 50-cal machine-gun bullets--there were also Apache gunships and A-10 anti-tank aircraft in readiness,--and on the third attempt to enter the house, "there was no fire as we moved up the stairs". Surprise, surprise. But then again, had not General Sanchez admitted that preparations had been made to "neutralise the target"? Now there are Iraqis aplenty comfortable with the thought that Uday and Qusay are dead, especially Uday. His cruelty was legendary. "It would be justice after what he has done," an old Iraqi friend of mine said. But note the words "would be". The level of scepticism remains high despite the pictures. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday he was glad he decided to release the photographs of the bullet-torn bodies which would help to convince frightened Iraqis that Saddam's rule was over and that far outweighed any sensitivities over showing the corpses. "I feel it was the right decision and I'm glad I made it," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. The Pentagon historically has refused to release pictures of either American or enemy war dead, but the secretary said he ordered bending that unofficial rule. "It is not a practice that the United States engages in on a normal basis," he said, but "I honestly believe that these two are particularly bad characters, and that it's important for the Iraqi people to see them, to know they're gone, to know they're dead, and to know they're not coming back." Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer, the US civil administrator in Iraq, told reporters the release of the pictures did not violate the Geneva Conventions. Asked whether he believed the Iraqi people would believe the evidence, Bremer said, "I think we can anticipate there will be, as there always are, programmes of disinformation put out by others. But I think most of them will believe that they're dead." Bremer said he believed that, in time, the deaths would help to reduce the security threat to US forces although there might be an "uptick in violence" against those troops in the short term. Many Iraqis said in Baghdad they were not convinced and demanded the corpses should be dragged through the streets as proof the feared brothers were dead. "Death is not enough. They should have been hung up on poles in a square in Baghdad so all Iraqis could see them. Then they should have died as people ate them alive," said businessman Khalil Ali. "The photographs do not mean anything." For Iraqis who had waited all day to see the photographs on television there was the frustration of yet another electricity blackout. "We wanted to see it and then have our wedding celebrations," said Nabeel Ahmed, 33, a wedding hall owner. "What can you do?" "This is all a deception. The Americans are just playing games," said housewife Sajida Abdel Rahim. "Besides why is it such a big deal? Don't you think the British and Americans commit atrocities?" Inside a cramped studio, plastics artist Fuad Haman, 41, guesses the two-day delay in showing pictures of Uday and Qusay comes from the elaborate preparations to fake their corpses. Earlier General Sanchez rejected criticism of the fatal raid. "I would never consider this a failure. Our mission is to find, kill or capture. "In this case, we had an enemy that was defending, it was barricaded and we had to take the measures that were necessary to neutralise the target." So why not wait longer, Sanchez was asked. Waiting the brothers out had been considered, he said, responding to a question with visible irritation, "but we chose the course of action that we took". Bremer suggested he didn't care whether Saddam, his sons or others on the American most-wanted list were taken dead or alive. Experts disagreed. "If the Americans captured Uday and Qusay, they would have known all about the old regime, all about the weapons of mass destruction and resistance groups," said Fouad Allam, an Egyptian terrorism expert. On the other hand, said Jonathan Stevenson, a senior counterterrorism fellow at London's International Institute of Strategic Studies, Saddam's sons may have known very little. On balance, he suggested, killing them may have provided the Americans more propaganda gain than information loss. "The value of keeping alive the two sons was probably rated low, while the value of killing them, with its potential power to galvanise the larger population's confidence in the Americans to furnish security, was probably rated as high," said Stevenson, an American. But Iraq's 25-member Governing Council said the brothers should have been captured, not killed. The council, hand-picked by Bremer, couched its opinion, however, in diplomatic language, saying the interim Iraqi authority "would have liked for them to be arrested" to stand trial and confess their crimes. A group loyal to deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein vowed vengeance in a videotape broadcast on an Arab television network. "We pledge to you Iraqi people that we will continue in the jihad [holy struggle] against the infidels," said a masked man claiming to be from Saddam Fedayeen on the tape carried by Al Arabiya. At the same time Gen Sanchez was speaking a new Saddam tape surfaced. Saddam's peroration to Iraqis came in his usual scratchy voice. Since he made it when his sons, faintly alluded to in the text, were still alive, it was a little out of tune with reality. But it was the authentic Saddam, even referring to a previous Sanchez address to the nation. "When the enemy declares that the war has not ended in Iraq, he is quite right because it has not finished at any level ... the enemy won the fight but he failed to achieve other things ... I call upon you to start rejoining the 'mujahidin', anywhere and everywhere, and to make contact with others to do the same ... everyone is now a commander." So perhaps thought the demonstrators who protested in Mosul, just as a sergeant in the 101st Airborne, discovering that he'd helped to kill the brothers, described how he and his comrades felt "high vibes ... it was a good gig". And so perhaps did the killers of three more American soldiers in the latest attacks. General Sanchez unwittingly echoed the Saddam tape. "The war goes on," he cheerfully announced, as if all of Iraq did not realise the fact. Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to Cockburn and St. Clair's forthcoming book, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003 Arthur Mitzman Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable Than the Dot.com Bubble? Julian Bond We Shall be Heard Cynthia McKinney Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad Mel Goodman What is to be Done with the CIA? Jason Leopold Tenet Blames Wolfowitz Mickey Z. History Forgave Churchill Doug Giebel Impeachment as the Message Jon Brown Whipping the Post Mano Singham Cheney's Oil Maps Steven Sherman Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC Robin Philpot Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters Khaldoun Khelil Capturing Friedman Jeffrey St. Clair You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed Lenni Brenner Sitting in with Mingus Vanessa Jones Three Dog Night Adam Engel Video Judas Video Poets' Basement Foley, Smith and Curtis Website of the Weekend Illegal Art   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /